The Humanitarian: Wesley Korir

When Wesley Korir departed Kenya for a track scholarship in Kentucky in 2003, he resolved never to return. "I remember telling God, 'Hallelujah, I've left the poverty land,'" Korir says. 'I'm going to the land of riches.'"

Over the ensuing decade, Korir found dazzling success in the U.S., setting University of Louisville school records in the 1500 and 5000 meters before winning the Los Angeles Marathon in 2009 and 2010 and the Boston Marathon in 2012 (where he ran 2:12:40 in that year's sweltering heat). But he couldn't shake Kenya from his mind—how women in his village, Biribiriet, walked three miles to a stream to fetch drinking water, and how the dirty water made children sick. How his younger brother, Eliud, had died of a black mamba snakebite—an injury he could have survived if he'd had medical care. A devout Christian, Korir eventually realized, "God has called me to fight poverty in Kenya."

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As Korir won races and attained modest wealth, he began pouring his earnings into improving his country. In 2010, along with his Canadian wife, Tarah (who is a 4:40-miler), Korir founded the Kenyan Kids Foundation to provide scholarships for high school students in his native Cherangany District. In 2011, the organization branched into health care, funding the construction of a 10-bed hospital in Biribiriet. When insufficient funds stalled construction, Korir turned to his friend, Ryan Hall, the elite American marathoner, who mobilized his Hall Steps Foundation to raise $33,000 and open the hospital's doors.

Today, Kenyan Kids Foundation provides scholarships to 100 kids and farming aid to five Biribiriet families. International doctors run clinics at the hospital, which Korir dedicated to the memory of his late brother, and the foundation's office in Biribiriet has a small library. Hall is awestruck. "I have never seen another runner help so many people on a daily basis," he says. "Wesley is a servant at heart."

But Korir, 31, is just warming up. Last spring, riding the fame of his 2012 Boston victory, he stepped up his fight against poverty by running for a seat in the Kenyan parliament. In a country riven by intense tribal politics, he campaigned as an independent—a brave, almost unprecedented gesture in Kenya—and won. "My first priority is to bring clean water to my district," he says. "If you can get water, you get rid of 80 percent of our diseases." He began by convincing a Louisville nonprofit to bring 20 volunteers to Kenya in November to repair more than 50 broken water pumps scattered throughout the Cherangany, population 195,000. In Parliament, he's trying to raise $1 million to build a network of pipes that will bring clean water to those in the district who don't live near pumps. Despite a relentless work schedule, he's also training—hard. "I have to run fast," he reasons. "If I don't win, the kids I've sponsored will not go to school."

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Wesley Korir placed ninth at November's New York City Marathon (in 2:11:34), after skimping on sleep and doing workouts on a treadmill to save time. But his best finishes may still lie ahead of him. "Wesley has a lot to run for in the way of motivation," Hall says of his friend, who hopes to be president of Kenya one day. "And when he lines up on the starting line, all of Kenya is behind him."

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